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tv   Piers Morgan Live  CNN  August 12, 2013 9:00pm-10:00pm EDT

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sorry, we ran out of time for the ridiculist. another edition of ac 360 at 10:00 p.m. "piers morgan live" starts right now. a crime that shocked the country. kidnapping victim hannah anderson's father speaks out about his daughter's ordeal. >> no one should have to go through this. >> now, it's time for us to grieve and move on to the healing process. >> plus, like father like son. reports of james dimaggio's father once held a 16-year-old girl at gunpoint. a friend tells me about chilling parallels. a woman who was kidnapped when she was only nine, and now katie
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beers has a message for hannah anderson. dy these things, no one did this to me, no one's to blame for this, but i am. a woman who will not hold back her opinion of anthony weiner. star jones joins me for round three. rescued hannah anderson, disturbing new revelations about the men police believed ab ducted her. joining me now is paul vercammen live in san diego. the story came do a soon to be gruesome end with the death of the number one suspect. what can you tell me about events from the moment we learned about it. >> well, we know there were these ranchers, two couples who came upon the couple of anderson. and, of course, hannah quite by accident. and they discovered them in the
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vast idaho wilderness, they looked way out of place. the fact that he had new camping equipment, he was up on a ridge in an odd place. her feet were in the water. they seemed to not want to discuss anything with them, they were alerted something was odd. later they saw hannah's picture on the news. one of the horseback riders was an ex-sheriff, he knew enough to call his contacts at the state police. in the end it took an fbi crew, they were helicoptered in, they hiked two hours, snuck up on a campsite, and by all accounts, dimaggio, who was armed picked up a rifle, fired once and then the lethal blow, the return fire from the fbi, piers. >> hannah had no idea he had set fire to their house killing her
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mother and little brother. >> this is what detectives maintained all along. she not only did not know that he had killed her mother and her brother, but she had no idea that his rural home had been set on fire, that's about a three acre property, it's sprawling, so she didn't detect that either. as she went on this forced escapade, no idea that she lost her family members. >> any suggestion at all that hannah may have had any part of this, gone along voluntarily, and then it became a much bigger adventure or whatever it may be. is there any suggestion that may be the case. >> certainly not at this point, many people have suggested that she didn't know at all what was going on, of course, this was a family friend who she called uncle, piers. >> it certainly is. paul vercammen, thank you very much indeed. hannah and her father face a long road to recovery. >> the healing process will be
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slow, she has been through a tremendous, horrific ordeal. i am proud of her, and i love her very much. as a family, give us our time to heal and grieve. >> now sheriff gore joins me. a satisfactory end to what could have potentially been a horrendous situation for hannah anderson. tell me about the operation itself. our understanding is that he opened fire first, james dimaggio, and the fbi officers here on the ground then killed him, is that your understanding? >> yes, piers, what we've determined from the interview that was done with hannah up in idaho by fbi forensic experts, is that dimaggio had a rifle, he
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fires at least one round. and then lowered the rifle and fired one more as best we can tell at that time, the hostage rescue team, sharpshooters, opened fire and killed dimaggio. >> from the conversations that the investigative officers have had with hannah herself. do you have an accurate picture of what went on in terms of sequence of events? she clearly did not know that her mother and brother had been killed in this house fire, do you know where she was? for example, when james dimaggio picked her up, or whether she went along with any part of this voluntarily? >> we know that the entire family, christina, ethan, the 8-year-old boy and hannah were going to dimaggio's house for some type of a party. beyond that, we know that hannah did not know her brother and mother were killed until we told
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her that in the interview up in idaho. it's very clear to experience homicide investigators from this department, and fbi interviewers, that she's nothing but a victim in this case. she was under severe duress from the time she was taken from boulevard until she was rescued by the hostage rescue team in idaho. there's no doubt in our mind from a lot of years of experience, that was the case, she had no idea what was going on and was not participating in this with dimaggio. >> clearly a devastating revelation for her. obviously after the elation of being rescued and freed, to discover this double tragedy of her mother and brother being killed. how do you describe her state of mind? >> i think she's got to be devastated as you expect. what we're asking first of all,
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we thank the media for their coverage, i don't think the hikers that spotted them up in idaho would have known anything about this case, wouldn't have known to go to authorities had the media not been so great in getting out the word. but she's devastated, obviously. she went through a terrible ordeal, a week of extreme duress, and then to find out that her brother and mother had been murdered. what we're asking now is for everybody to give her a time to grieve, to heal from this -- just tragic ordeal she's been through, and that's what we're asking the public to do now. it's just going to take time. >> in terms of the potential motive for all this, there are increasingly parallels between what has happened here, and what happened to james dimaggio's own father. what can you tell me about how your inquiries have gone in that regard? >> yeah, we have a lot of interviews, we're still conducting, we're examining the
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evidence we seized from the fire here in boulevard, as well as the crime scene investigations in idaho. we have a lot of work to be done yet. there's indications from people we've interviewed already that he was becoming infatuated with her. we may never know the cause of what was -- what really prompted him to snap like this, kill two people and brutally kidnap hannah. sometimes we're going to try to get as many answers as we, but it's difficult to get inside somebody's head and see what the real motivation is. and then there's sometimes we try to come up with a logical explanation for something that's completely illogical. we're going to do the best we request, i don't have enough answers for you right now, and that's what we're working on. >> thank you for joining me. a very successful operation by you and your men in the fbi in tracking down this.
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and making sure that anderson was able to get away alive and well. for that, i thank you very much indeed. >> thanks for having me on, piers. i want to bring back a man i first spoke to last week. we've spoken several times in the build up to a sort of -- what was your reaction when you heard how it all ended? >> i was very relieved that hannah was saved. my feelings about jim being shot, i'm proud that the police and the fbi did whatever they had to do to save hannah's life. that was probably paramount in this situation. yet everyone's looking for answers still, and i've had to work with laura, his sister and bury -- and their children, of which jim was the uncle of. that's been difficult as well, there's a lot of grief and
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mourning. all those children used to play together, jim and jim's sister. and kids used to play with. >> and this -- there's this extraordinary parallel you have new details about, james dimaggio's own father took his life 18 years ago to the day that james dimaggio was killed. he also had a background of an apparent infatuation and abduction of a 16-year-old girl himself for which he went to prison. tell me about this? >> i can now confirm that, i wasn't able to talk about it for various reasons. >> the family had a traumatic upbringing, they were emotionally and physically abused by their father who had an extreme problem with methamphetamine use. when the mother died of cancer, the father became worse. the parents had separated prior to that, and jim had decided to go with the father, and laura
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had gone with the mother. but as it turns out, i've been able to find out more and more information about how jim was basically abandoned as a child. and after the mother died, it was really up to jim to take on the father role for laura. >> this incident, what do you know? >> i can confirm everything that's been reported by the woman who's been speaking out is accurate. >> let's listen to a clip from this, this is an interview with the alleged victim of james dimaggio's father. she was 16, she too was taken by the father and held at gunpoint. liston what she had to say. >> i asked him to please not kill us. he said, don't worry, it will be over quick. >> we're not naming her at this stage, nor have we been able to independently speak to her. she makes it pretty clear that she was taken and held at gunpoint against her will. the parallels here, you have two hats here. you are a close friend of james
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dimaggio. do you think this is what is behind all this? >> i'm positive that he had a suicidal plan. the fact that he took his cat out into the wilderness with him, that he had saved before i mentioned on your show, that it was strange that he would shoot a dog. but, you know, when people have a suicidal plan, they'll often take things with them, that they want to die and go with them, if they believe in god or a natural life. a lot of people are sure he's going to hell, but it's very common, when people have a suicidal plan, the dates fit so perfectly and he was there, there's also an eerie semblance between the fact that he took on a father role with hannah, and he also did the same thing with laura, when laura was abandoned with her family. >> how is she dealing with all this. she lost her mother to cancer, father to suicide --
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>> she said, i'm the last one left and i feel all alone. she's also devastated because she knew the anderson family and was friends with the kids and family. in a strange way, she's victimized by liz actions as well. and having to deal with the grief of it, and dealing with the body and such, it's been very difficult this past day. >> stay with me. we're going to come back after the break, talk to somebody who has evolved in a similar case of abduction but survived. she'll say what it takes to recover from this type of trauma. we'll also talk to a top psychologist. we'll come back after the break.
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i want to thank all who spread the word, shared their thoughts on social media across the country. have no doubt, this did make a difference. >> hannah anderson's father talking about her ordeal. katie beers was kidnapped by a neighbor when she was only 9 years old and held prisoner in an underground bunker for 17 days. she tells a story in the book. this kind of story must bring back so many memories for you. most of them awful, i would think. what kind of parallels did you see with this case and yours, what advice could you give to hannah anderson about how you recover from it? >> the parallels between my abduction and hannah's abduction are the fact that we were both
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abducted by family friends. family friends that apparently had an infatuation with us as young girls. and the recovery for her, it's going to be i think a long road. because it was somebody that she trusted so very much that had abducted her and completely put a distrust in her, or in him now. and the fact that she has her family is gone now, and she just has her dad, i think it's going to be a long road to recovery. >> how does it affect your ability to trust people again. and to hold down normal relationships, perhaps, with men as you get older. >> i think it all depends upon what your early childhood was like. for me, i did not have a very good upbringing, i was sexually and physically abused by my
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godmother's husband. and the only stable relationship that i had with a male was with my older brother who was six years older than me. so for me, the trust factor was very difficult because of the lack of relationships. through therapy and through the love of my foster family, i was able to get to a point where i could trust members of the opposite sex. my foster brothers, my foster father, different things like that, and eventually i had boyfriends, i got married, had children, i was able to learn how to trust again. i'm hoping that hannah will be able to get to that point. >> what kind of lessons can be learned from this, in terms of how to spot the warning signs, perhaps, when someone who is a trusted family friend does start to develop an unhealthy interest or obsession or infatuation with a young women, what do you think should happen in that situation
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some. >> from the media reports that i read, it seems like the abductor said something to hannah that showed that he was infatuated with her or in love with her, in some sort of inappropriate way. at that point i think she should have said something to her mother or father to alert them of his comments, it shouldn't have been somebody that she should have been around any longer once that came to light. >> finally, katie, do you feel like you've been able to properly move on now, and if so, how have have you done that? what do you think? what's the most effective thing you've been able to do for yourself, that's made you recover in that way? >> for me, i definitely think that i have moved toward almost a full recovery. there are sometimes that maybe not so much that i feel like i've moved toward a full recovery, but i think that the
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years of therapy, and the love of my foster family and my foster siblings has definitely aided in that, and now i got married seven years ago, and my husband is every day helping in my recovery. it's definitely a long process. 20 years later i wouldn't say i'm completely recovered, but i'm definitely on that path where i feel very comfortable with myself and my life, and where i've come from. >> katie, terrific to talk to you, and to see you luking so well and to hear you talk about the recovery. i'm sure it will be a great solace to hannah anderson, who is facing a long and arduous recovery process herself. thank you for joining me. >> not a problem, thank you. joining me now, a psychologist with the l.a. department of children and family services. you two know each other. i didn't realize that, you both
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work in the field of psychiatry and mental health. the more you've seen in this case, what is the most likely motivation. a simple infatuation or mixture coupled with all the trauma that james dimaggio endured at the hands of his own father? >> i think it's both. he's reliving the stuff from the role model he never got to own and figure out. he's just repeating what he was taught and what he saw, in order to connect to that role model. >> in a way, it's a classic abused person turned abuser, season the it? >> right. >> but his mother died and the father killed himself. that must all come into play. >> it's all coupled around anger from abandonment. and having to take on the responsibility of a parent when you're a child or a sibling. >> you yourself have had death threats and people treating you horrendously. talking about your friend as jim
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and somebody you've known as a close friend. you're as stunned by what happened as anybody else. >> horrible things, people saying i've been out supporting a pedophile, and i've done nothing from the beginning to help make sense for the authorities. for the anderson family. luckily, hannah got back alive. >> there does seem to be a lynch mop mentality when something like this happens. it's folklore, western behavior to go out there, let's hang the guys. >> did you, at any stage see anything looking back from his behavior that could possibly have led you to think he might one day be this kind of violent or to kidnap somebody? >> in mind sight. i keep looking back, and i've been thinking about it for the past five days, it's a no.
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and i've been -- i do this for a living, and i work with people who, they're in denial, they're in a state of denial. i've worked with laura over the past few days, dealing with her denial about what her brother did. trying to get insight into jim's mind. this is all common. on our camping trip he would sit there and tell me his childhood was horrendous. i had no level of the abuse and neglect he had suffered, and if i had, obviously, i would have talked more to him about that, he was a prideful person. who took on this fatherly role. and so he did everything he could to cover up the pain of his past. >> and also, i mean, none of this is to excuse what he did, it's to try to explain it. to try to understand it, which i'm sure hannah anderson and her father in particular, who lost his wife and son. this is a close friend of his. as good a friend as he was to andrew, he must be wrestling
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with all this, wondering, how could this have happened? >> absolutely, deception, lies, hurt. >> anniversary dates mean a lot. i think that probably had a lot of significance for this man. >> 18 years to the day. remember, he killed himself and he was killed. >> the house was burned down to the day when his father didn't show up. this is what i just found out today. when he didn't show up for laura's 16th birthday, which is a very interesting about puberty as well. the father didn't show up, he disappeared. that's the anniversary date that jim burned the house down, he took an iv dose of methamphetamine and walked into the desert and was found the day jim was killed. >> what did you make of what lindsay beers said, what she's now discovered about her mother and brother? >> i think the bottom line is,
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she needs to heal, the way she heals is to go through the funeral or whatever the services are, and get into some good solid treatment. that foster family that katie refers to is the wrap around tight knit support system that is going to get anybody through that. at the end of the day, no matter what it is, it's about rebuilding trust and feeling you can trust other people to love and not hurt you. >> dr. sophie. thank you both very much indeed. coming up, the man who wants to be mayor of new york. doesn't new york want anthony weiner as mayor? he joins me exclusively to talk about that interview. let's say, it was combative. >> you can do this, or show videos of cats, whatever you're doing. recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap
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are you in therapy? >> apparently you never go out of therapy. you just remain in forever. i still see a therapist from time to time. >> new york mayoral candidate anthony weiner talked to ben smith. asked if he is still seeing a therapist. surprising. when the sex scandal threatens to implode a campaign. ben, first of all, congratulations to the lively interview with anthony weiner. is he really going to stay in this race, or does the sense that you were getting from your encounter with him, suggest that
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perhaps even he knows a game may be un. >> he sure didn't seem happy to be there, he didn't feel like he was out there trying to make people like him, which is the name of the game. the primary is on september 10th, if he was going to drop out, he would have dropped out already. his best bet of getting in there is a series of debates. i don't see any clue he would drop out. >> let's go through some of the revelations. when you discussed his wife, who obviously works with closely with hillary clinton. let's watch this. >> do you know what her role in hillary's 2016 campaign is going to be? >> i do. >> what will it be? >> i'm not telling you. >> do you feel like you've damaged her place in that world? >> i feel what i've done has hurt her professionally, hurt her personally. >> my take away from that was that perhaps we won't be seeing huma closely aligned with
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hillary clinton. was that your takeaway from that? >> my first take -- huma had been until last week, the person you go to, if you want to get access to hillary clinton for whatever reason. she took a leave from that, i think, it was reported last week. whether she is the gatekeeper or not is a small political world. >> it could only come from someone who runs buzz feed -- it comes from snapchat. >> the one question i got from buzz feed staff, why not use snapchat? >> that was a fantastic
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question. viewers did not snknow snapchat it's an app on your phone, they disintegrate into the ether. you would have thought christmas come early. >> around the time he was launching his second wave of these things. that got him in all this trouble this time around. which he did on this obscure platform. i don't know how he wound up there. one of the interesting things is that a lot of people, maybe of your age, of my age, mid-30s, even. think that what he did is in some way kind of weird. there's a recent study from the university of rhode island. 78% of college kids exchanged sexually charged texts in some way. i think for a lot of our audience, the form this took was not particularly weird, and the notion that he's being hillary for the digital element of this
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seems strange. >> the two weird points, i think, that i would say about anthony weiner, one is, he never met any of these women or knew anything about them before they did anything about this. >> secondly, the fact that even when he was brought crashing to his political knees and had to resign, we now discover that he carried on after that with at least three more women. again, a grave risk to his career, and to his marriage. he doesn't seem to care. but on the other, how can you -- >> i mean, i asked him, why didn't you just say, this is what i do. live with it, lots of new yorkers do lots of strange things. in fact, like new york is not known for having mayors with particularly conventional personal lives. i think david is the only mayor married to his wife and stayed that way. that's not the root he chose. he had this sense, one of our
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editors wrote a piece today about how for young people, the internet is very real. there's no sense of a difference between something that happens online and something that happens in real life. for anthony, it felt like, he thought this was this other alternate universe where it wasn't real, these people weren't real people, where this stuff could stay secret. instead this woman turned around and cashed in on every ounce of her relationship with him. >> finally, i guess the reality of politics, this is about who you would want as nyc mayor nominee among democratic registered voters. christine quinn ahead 25%. anthony weiner down to 20%. that trim you have to say his chances are somewhere between no hope and bob hope. >> look at that pole, it's a runoff system. the top two get in, not that big a difference between 10% and 14%. i don't think that means he's out of the running. that said, in that polling, 75%
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of people have a negative impression of him, that is terrible and very hard to overcome. >> having said all this anthony weiner is an intelligent guy. he's been very funny, very charming. i've always liked the guy. does he have a future outside of the new york mayoral campaign later? >> i asked him that, he seemed to not be able to imagine anything beyond next month. if he finishes at 5%, maybe not. if he made a decent showing and the voters forgave him. he's already proven there are second acts and maybe a third. >> it was a great interview, electrified to watch that in many ways. >> thanks, piers. >> i love the straight talking. i'm worried about my job after that. it was good to watch and a fascinating insight to weiner. he seemed like he lost a little bit of his own, i thought -- something about his demeanor i
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felt was a little bit -- >> he didn't even insult me until 15 minutes in, it felt like, where are you? >> congratulations, thanks for joining me. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> when we come back, a woman who's not afraid to say what she thinks about anthony weiner. or anything else for that matter. she speaks out about anthony weiner and san diego's scandalous mayor. but when it comes to investing, i just think it's better to work with someone. someone you feel you can really partner with. unfortunately, i've found that some brokerage firms don't always encourage that kind of relationship. that's why i stopped working at the old brokerage, and started working for charles schwab. avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today. diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes!
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i've apologized many, many times for my personal failings. i don't recall the speaker apologize once for the slush fund. i don't mind that people make mistakes, it's a matter of taking ownership for them. >> more on anthony weiner's interview with buzz feed. star jones, are you impressed by anthony weiner's latest fight? >> i don't know why, but what's coming into my head is every time i try to get out, you pull me back in. >> he looked as if he didn't want to be there.
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talk about somebody who is miserable. i've never seen someone run for office with less enthusiasm than what we saw during the interview. i thought the interview was very well done, some really great questions, too bad the answers were not as forthcoming as the voters deserve. >> the problem really, after he had to resign in disgrace, and we were reading people magazine interviews with his wife, how he was trying to save his marriage. when we discovered he carried on with endless complete women. >> he was lying. >> he was just lying. >> it's the sort of thing -- it made him a bit of a laughing stock, didn't it? >> a lying and a laughing stock. the worst part about it is, i could care less what liz after work sex like is, or what his during work sex life is, if you're just -- if you don't have the judgments necessary to make
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the decision, i've been caught, it's kind of pervy, i'm going to keep doing it, that's not a person that needs to be sitting in city hall. with all of the issues that new yorkers are going to have to face i'm the one who wants to elect a mayor of all aspects of the job. i'm not looking for someone who spends his leisure time spending penis pictures all across the world, i think that's tacky. >> let's turn to the bigger picked in all this, which may well be more to deal with his wife and her boss. hillary clinton was out today talking about what many believe to be an early stump speech in many ways. let's take a look at what she had to say. >> i'm sorry, we'll come back to that in a moment. broadly speaking, star, on the
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question of hillary clinton in 2016, can huma stay as her right hand woman without damaging hillary politically. >> the problem is, huma has been the stallworth second to hillary without any question. she's had her back on days when a lot of people would not have known what to say to hillary, i do believe that she really and truly cares about hillary clinton, and hillary really and truly cares about her, she would be a distraction in anyway, if she were affiliated with hillary clinton and a run for another office. the presidency is what we're talking about, the last thing that secretary clinton would want is to have every single time there's a picture of her with huma standing next to each other, is to be reminded of her
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husband's infidelities. and that is what -- >> we now have this clip i was trying to get to earlier of hillary speaking today. >> it should reinforce the fundamental principles of the votes rights act and ensure that citizens have the information and access they need to fully participate in our democracy. >>. >> i thought she looked pretty rested. she looked pretty on point political politically. this is quite deliberately an unofficial launch pad for i'm going to be there in 2016, is that your take? >> and she's speaking to a c constituency that she's going to need. >> you start talking to people about voting rights, that's the basic foundation of being an american citizen. this is who i want to represent me in making choices that will impact on my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. it's my very basic freedom.
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and for her to start the speaker series, addressing the issue of voting rights tells you where she's coming from, what she finds important and who she plans to appeal to. i think 2016 is looking a lot more likely every time we hear a little more from secretary clinton. >> now, we still have president obama and a big fury blew up today over the outrage that bo hitched a ride on one of the two osprey md-22 helicopters that landed with various personnel. it's outrage the dog may have cost a few thousand dollars to transport. do you share the outrage over bo and his freebie? >> i really. >> from what i understand, and i'm only going to go on what i
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heard from cnn right now. the dog was on the helicopter or the -- with a bunch of staff, that's the way he was transported. if you tell me they use taxpayer dollars to just transport the dog with nothing else then i would share the outrage. if you're telling me the dog hitched a ride with the rest of the staff, and it was just his face, you're talking to a dog lover. my dog goes everywhere with me. she will be hitching a ride when i get on a plane tomorrow to go to l.a. >> i think if he hadn't taken the dog, the scandal would then be cruel, heartless president leaves a pet dog behind as he goes on holiday. >> you know that president obama and the first lady, michelle obama, they can do no right when it comes to this particular vacation. they can't even take two days off to go walk on the beach and hold hands. the fact that we have a married couple in the white house that wants to go somewhere together
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and hold hands and have a vacation that's not for the press is something that actually makes me feel pretty good as an american. >> you know, i find myself in the staggering position of actually agreeing with you let's move on so we can find something to argue about. paula deen's lawsuit, a slight victory for her on that. and eric holder talking about the ridiculous overcrowding of american prisons. we'll discuss that as well. weekdays are for rising to the challenge. they're the days to take care of business.
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too many americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no truly good law enforcement reason. >> attorney general eric holder today. with me to react is star jones. you know, staggering statistics. the u.s. prison population has grown by almost 800% since 1980. federal prisons operating nearly 40% above capacity. you read stuff like that, the u.s. is 5% of the world's population, but it incarcerates 25% of the world's prisoners. this is a broken system. what do we do about it? >> well, it may be broken but it's still the best system they have across the world. if you can name me a system that works better -- >> what is it? you're incarcerating so many people often for minor misdemeanors -- i hate that
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whole three strikes and you're out thing. >> well -- >> i've read stories in california where people caught with three small amount of cannabis and get a 35-year mandatory sentence. how can that be just? >> three strikes you're out is supposed to be with good judgment. every time there's a blanket law like we had the stop and frisk decision happening here in new york, any time there's just a blanket rule without the ability to have any discretion, i don't think it's a good rule. i understand where the attorney general is coming from. i understand where he's saying that we do not need to incarcerate minor drug offenses that are unaffiliated with sort of these cartel-type gangs that are roving our country and really infiltrating our cities. by the same token, you're talk to an ex-prosecutor. i do know what drugs do to a community. so i'm not one of these people that throws out the baby with the bath water. i do agree with him that the
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mandatory minimum sentences should be changed, should be evaluated, and each court should have the ability to make decisions. i don't like three strikes you're out just being mandatory. and i don't like the three strikes just being any kind of case. but violent felony offenders i do think should be treated that exact way. >> let's move on to paula deen. she got a bit of i would say good news today. the racial discrimination claims were dismissed by a federal judge against her. the judge stated that at best plaintiff is an accidental victim of the alleged racial discrimination. what did you make of that? was the judge right, and should we start to forgive paula deen and allow her back into civilized society? >> you know what's interesting about this is i -- i'm of two mind. i start to think about somebody like -- do you remember richard jewell from the accusation of the atlanta bombings? and you realize that he had zero to do with it, and the old adage where do i go to get my
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reputation back comes in to place. then you look at what the court ruling actually was as it relates to paula deen. the court didn't say she didn't say it. the court didn't say she didn't mean it. the court just said the person who was bringing that particular element of the case didn't have standing to bring it because she was not subjected to racial discrimination. the court also left completely in place the sexual harassment aspects of the case. and that is where you don't need to have a big celebration around the pot of okra tonight, paula deen, because that sexual harassment part actually does have some teeth to it. if you make for an uncomfortable work environment for anyone because of your behavior, that can be considered sexual harassment. so there's not a big celebration yet. she got rid of some of it, but not all of it. >> i mean, my final point would be what i said earlier about the case which is if you put all americans over the age of, say,
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55 or 60 under oath and said "have you ever used the "n" word," and they had to answer honestly, i would say that a vast majority probably would have used it in the early stages of their life when it was nowhere near as inflammatory as it is now. would you agree with that? is that is true, should we be slightly more forgiving given she brought this out herself? >> you know, i would probably agree with you on that. what i would not be able to sort of sweep under the rug is any time you sit around and you fantasize about going back to the confederate era when you can dress black men in little black suits with black ties and have women who are african-american walk around in the "slave maid" costume, then i got a problem with that. i'm not sure who you are and what you really feel. >> star jones, as always, i bow to your wisdom on most things. not all.
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just some of them. i'll speak to you soon, star. good to talk it you. that's all for us tonight. "anderson cooper" coming up next. ♪ [ male announcer ] some question physics. some question gravity. and some... even have the audacity to question improbability. with best-in-class towing and best-in-class torque these are some of the bold, new ram commercial trucks -- built to blow your imagination. guts. glory. ram. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again.
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